Fur-effect fabrics and method of making same



Oct. 28, 1958 A. F. MCNALLY ET AL FUR-EFFECT FABRICS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME 3 Sheets-Sheet l Filed Sept. 4, 1956 HGL 2 SHRINK/N6 CHAMBER Oct. 28, 1958- AF, MGNALLY Em 2,857,652

FUR-EFFECT FABRICS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed Sept. 4, 1956 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 A TTORNEYS Oct. 28, 1958 A F. MONALLY EI'AL 2,357,652

FUR-EFFECT FABRICS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed Sept. 4, 1956 s Sheets-Sheet a FIG; 21

A TTORNEYS.

Unite FUR-EFFECT FABRICS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Application September 4, 1956, Serial No. 607,777

Claims. (Cl. 28--72) This invention relates to fur-effect fabrics and more particularly to fabrics which simulate natural furs and to a method for making such fabrics. Fabrics have been heretofore produced having a soft furry pile surface, which fabrics may be used as a substitute for natural furs. Such fabrics, however, have not simulated many natural furs, since they have normally provided only one face surface of substantially equal length pile fibers. It is the primary object of this invention to provide a woven fur-effect fabric from textile yarns which closely simulates natural furs by having a furry undercoating of fine fibers and coarser fibers extending beyond the under-coating in the manner of the beard hairs of a natural fur.

Many difficulties have been encountered in attempting to provide simulated beard hairs in a fur-effect fabric. In natural furs there are substantially two face surface levels. One is the lower level of the furry under-coat hairs and the other is the outer or upper level of the extended beard hairs. Great difliculty has been encountered in endeavoring to provide these two levels in fur-effect fabrics due to the impossibility of shearing the under-coat yarns to form one level without at the same time removing simulated beard hairs. It is accordingly a principal object of the present invention to provide a method of producing two substantially clearly defined levels of pile yarns in a fur-effect fabric.

Some fur effect fabrics having both the fine underbody and the higher extending beard hairs have been produced by knitting, whereby a small card is attached to the knitting machine and fibers of different fineness and length are carded and engaged by the knitting needles and knitted into the backing yarns as the pile. This method produces essentially the beard hair effect of furs in this fabric. However, the inherent characteristics of a knitted fabric are such that these fibers are not adequately anchored in the backing and the fabric therefore has a very pronounced tendency to shed in normal wear. Principally, they do not have the fabric stability of a woven pile fabric.

Accordingly, it is another object of this invention to provide a woven fur-effect fabric and a method of making such a fabric.

The above objects and others which will be apparent from the following description are achieved by weaving a pile fabric in which the pile yarns are formed of a mixture of normal textile yarns and highly shrinkable yarns of filaments such as polyethylene and then shrinking the highly shrinkable yarns so that the remaining yarns extend appreciably above the height of the shrinkable yarns.

One embodiment of the fabric and method of the invention is described in the following description and the drawings of which:

Fig. l is a sectional view of a fabric made according to the invention prior to cutting and shrinking.

Fig. 2 is a sectional view of the fabric of Fig. 1 after the loop pile has been cut.

States Patent Fig. 3 is a sectional view similar to Fig. 2 after the highly shrinkable yarns have been shrunk.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view showing a double woven fabric being treated according to the process of the invention.

Fig. 5 is a side elevational view in section showing the cut pile fabric of the invention being treated in a finishing operation.

' Fig. 6 is a sectional view of a finished fabric made according to the invention.

Figure 7 is a side elevational view in section showing the cut pile fabric of the invention being treated in a finishing operation to produce the fabric illustrated in Figure 6.

The pile yarn 13 is a multi-ply yarn. In the specific example shown in Fig. 1 of the drawings the pile yarn 13 is made up of two yarns 11 and 12. Yarn 12 is a normal textile material. The other yarn 11 is a highly shrinkable textile material. By way of specific example, the yarn 12 may be nylon or Dacron or the like and yarn 11 may be any highly shrinkable material such as polyethylene or high shrinking dynel yarn; In any event yarns will be selected which will best simulate the beard hairs of natural furs in the case of yarn 12 and the furry under pelt of natural furs in the case of yarn 11. The

fibers of yarn 12 will thus normally .be coarser than the fibers of yarn 12. To simulate actual furs such as mink,

the fibers in the beard hair should approximate 80 denier while those in the underbody should be about 1-1V2 to 3 denier per filament. In any event there should be a substantial difference.

The pile yarn 13 may be woven either as the pile yarn in a single fabric as shown in Fig. 1 or in a double pile fabric as shown in Fig. 4.

The pile yarns 13 of the fabric of Fig. 1 are sheared to form a uniform cut pile as shown in Fig. 2. This is preferably done on a hook shear commonly used in the art. A similar result is produced by the cutting operation shown in Fig. 4. The cut pile fabric is then subjected to a shrinking treatment to shrink the yarns 11.

Due to the uniform shrinking characteristics of the yarns.

' 11, they will shrink to a substantially uniform level as shown in Fig. 3, leaving the yarns 12 extending above that level to another substantially uniform level. The shrinking operation as shown in Fig. 4 may be made part of the continuous procedure.

The fabric of Fig. 3 is then subjected to a finishing treatment to more nearly simulate the natural fur. The first step in such a treatment is illustrated in Fig. 5 in which the fabric is passed over a carding or tigering roll which separates the fibers in the yarns and raises the pile. The fabric is then passed over a hot grooved roller running at high speed which straightens and polishes the individual fibers in each yarn producing a fluffy, furry effect as shown in Fig. 6. This may be accomplished with fur finishing machines such as are shown in the United States Letters Patent Nos. 1,604,523, M. H. Kronson, October 26, 1926, and 1,771,144, P. P. Ruhe, et al., July 22, 1930, or the like. In Fig. 7 is shown a hot grooved roller 20 acting upon pile yarns 13. The effect of the finishing operation is to produce a fluffy, furry undercoat of the yarns 11 as shown in Fig. 6. The beard hairs simulating yarns .12 being normally coarser than the under pelt yarns will not be substantially affected by this treatment.

As indicated above, any suitable textile materials may be used in the yarns employed in the invention. Different weaves may also be employed. In the specific embodiment of the invention described above a V weave is shown. It will be appreciated that a W or any other suitable weave may be used. Many other variations may be made in the process and fabric of the invention without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.

Having thus described our invention, we claim:

1. A method of making a woven fur-effect fabric comprising the steps of forming a multi-ply yarn from yarns having substantially different degrees of shrinkability, weaving yarns so formed as pile yarns in a woven pile fabric, cutting the pile yarns to form a uniform pile surface, opening the cut pile yarns and shrinking the more highly shrinkable of the yarns forming said multi-ply pile yarns to form a plurality of separate pile surfaces, whereby the highly shrinkable yarns simulate the furry undercoat of natural furs and the remaining yarns simulate the beard hairs of natural furs.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the less shrinkable yarns are monofilaments.

3. The method of claim 1 further characterized by the fact that after shrinking the pile yarns are treated to separate the fibers of the highly shrinkable yarns to form a furry under coating.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the fabric is passed over a carding or tigering roll thereby separating the fibers in the yarns and raising the pile and is passed over a hot grooved roller running at high speed thereby straightening and polishing the fibers in the yarns producing a furry effect.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the fabric is woven as a double woven fabric.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the fabric is woven as a loop pile fabric and the pile is cut to form a cut pile fabric.

7. The fabric made according to the method of claim 1.

8. The fur-effect fabric of claim 7 wherein at least one of the plies of said pile yarn is a spun yarn of shrinkable material and at least one of the plies of said pile yarn is a filament of substantially non-shrinkable material.

9. The fur-effect fabric of claim 7 wherein at least one of the plies of said multi-ply yarns comprises fine shrinkable dynel fibers and at least one of the plies of said multi-ply yarns is a nylon filament.

10. The fur-effect fabric of claim 7 wherein at least one of the plies of said pile yarns is a filament of non-shrinkable material substantially coarser in texture than the fibers of said highly shrinkable yarns.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,760,464 Achtmeyer May 27, 1930 2,319,073 McElhaney May 11, 1943 2,737,702 Schmidt Mar. 13, 1956 2,754,578 Groat July 17, 1956 2,815,558 Bartovics et al. Dec. 10, 1957 FOREIGN PATENTS 228 Great Britain of 1894 

